


les primevères sont finies

by CampionSayn



Series: Goretober 2020 [6]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Season/Series 02, no beta we die like demodogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:06:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: "So we can stay the night?""Of course can. You're here, after all."
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Steve Harrington & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Series: Goretober 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949095
Kudos: 23





	les primevères sont finies

Steve didn't even make the decision to move and actually react. Not really.

He'd been busy all day watching the kids and had gone home to his always empty house to find he'd forgotten to buy actual food that didn't come from a can. Gone out to get enough to make pancakes _(waffles if El visited)_ by scratch; bread, eggs, milk and coffee. Even tried his luck flirting with the cashier who'd been too out of it so late at night to even acknowledge him beyond handing him back his change.

He'd been fishing his keys out of his back pocket, lights in the parking lot lit, but the night ever fixed and all-encompassing on the blacktop; heard a familiar voice plead, "Please, Neil, leave him alone! He didn't do anything! Stop it!"

Then his hand hurt...

He realized he'd dropped his groceries next to the trunk of his car and raced over to the alleyway behind the bar that really shouldn't have been open with so many health-code violations.

Out of the orange glow of the lamps, into the dark, neon blinking maw of the alley, breath coming out in puffs of white with the temperature having gone down with the sun. His bangs bounced in front of his face once, but his vision was still open enough to take in the sight before going red.

Billy Hargrove in the fetal position on the ground covered in dirt, blood sliding along his face, and Max standing before him like the herald of a fallen knight in a fairy tale, red hair bright as a beacon with the neon lights highlighting her split lip and the hand print with a wedding ring across her face. Blood from her lip marred her upper and lower canines.  
  


Steve's knuckles split open and he was looking at Neil Hargrove, panting with blood dripping from his nose.

Steve still didn't think, impulse and instinct driving into him, much like when he'd faced down demodogs with nothing but his favorite weapon and his kids tucked away as safe as they could be at the time.

Somehow the night with the otherworld monsters felt safer.  
  


He'd only met Neil Hargrove a few times, always when dropping Max off from Dustin's and usually only within yards from the driveway to Hargrove's front door with the usual "hello, thank you, have a good day" things parents say to people watching their kids in a small town that Steve had gotten as used to as the sun rising since taking on six children like a big brother in his own right.

Steve didn't think someone with such a stupid mustache could gather a look in his eyes like he was out for blood.

"The fuck you think you're doing, you little shit--!"

Oh. And he was drunk.  
  


Whatever, that made Steve's choices a lot easier.

* * *

Max had been to Steve's before, but Billy was still in shock over the fact that someone had actually intervened with Neil, taken a-not-quite beating on his behalf and then picked him up to drive him and his sister to their house. The offer of a bed or sofa and food sliding over him like cold water.

"Okay, okay, let's set you down here," Steve huffed, leading Billy, arm slung over his shoulder, to the sofa that hardly felt used as he was placed as carefully as possible with an apparent set of at least bruised ribs.

Feather light fingers moved hair sticking to his bloody face away, and Billy finally looked up to find Harrington with a forming bruise along his jaw and a cut above the eye, organizing his thoughts and compiling a list in his head detailing all of Billy's injuries that needed treatment.

"Max, could you put the groceries away for me while I fix Billy up, please?"

"Uh, your eggs are kinda trashed," she noted with the bag held to her chest like a large teddy bear won at the fair, eyes intent on Billy and completely ignoring her own injuries.

"That's fine, just put the eggs atop the counter and I'll pick through them for the yolks later; you'll both need the protein tomorrow after all this adrenaline wears off."

"So we can stay the night?"

"Of course can. You're here, after all," he hummed, taking Billy's boots off and giving Max a smile before heading to the bathroom to get the med kit he'd been stockpiling since he'd learned about the Upside Down and demodogs.

* * *

The eggs made enough of a meal for three, probably because Steve really wasn't in the habit of eating in the morning and Billy was rather peckish because of the bruised ribs, chill of the morning prickling the skin of his arms not covered by the The Rolling Stones' shirt borrowed from Steve.

Max ate and tried not to mind the half-silence filled up by Steve making them actual, real pancakes, humming an unfamiliar tune under his breath and looking far too at ease for someone who had to wake up to the sounds of Billy puking his guts out in the bathroom across the hall from him, trying not to cry when he put pressure on his injuries.

She knew, by now, from the Party (mostly Dustin) that Steve was always grateful for anyone besides himself simply existing in the same space as him in this house that his parents only came to maybe three times a year. Being diplomats who married to make their exceptionally old, well-off families happy, having a child to fulfill the obligation of the merger, owning nine other properties worldwide and leaving Steve to his own devices so they could pretend the other didn't exist, waiting for the day Steve turned eighteen to give him his trust fund and probably never see them again...

Honestly, she could put two and two together on his reasons for easily allowing someone like Billy--who beat his face in and usurped his title as King--into his house as easy as allowing a grasshopper to live in a garden.

"So, do you wanna talk about why Neil was beating the both of you up, or should I call Hopper and have him sort it all out?"

His voice was soft, not a trace of force or malice behind the inquiry, but Billy still tensed up and Max still felt like she'd just had cold water doused over her head.

She expected it, but that didn't make her any more prepared for someone actually caring about the both of them.

She looked over at Billy, whose sea storm eyes looked back at her, but not really in the eye as he was more focused on the bruise along her cheek, lip scabbed but still red and knew, even without being able to see, the bruising along her neck like a collar where Neil grabbed her to move her out of the way before Steve jumped on him like a... well, like a wolf, or a lion, or a sheepdog in a rage, all wrapped together.  
  


Neil had been building up to hurting her after the incident with the Tunnels and the Upside Down, she knew, but without really believing it, because he had never done more than grab her by the arm or send her to her room without dinner. But, after not showing up that night after everything, Billy having still been at the Byers when they'd gotten back, too drugged up and totally incoherent to even conceive of going back to Old Cherry Road; things changed.

She'd come up with a lie to cover up...as much as possible...when she'd woken the next morning to find Billy smoking on the Byers porch, Steve standing five feet away from him _(jesus, his face looked bad)_ but without a weapon and Billy seeming like he had no idea how to react to a person that was still around after he'd beat them up, still stood protective and tall and unwilling to back off if Billy started something again. Billy had been trying to sneer around his cigarette, but Max knew better and Steve remained impassive, which disturbed Billy more than anger or fear could.

It disturbed Max, too, but she wasn't paying attention at the time. She spent the ride to school, the school day, and the ride home proverbially dancing as fast as she could in her head and in the end what came out of her mouth when they both got home could be distilled down to, "I went into the woods with some new friends to work on survival skills and the mom of one of my new friends gave Billy bad directions and we all stumbled around lost until, like, four in the morning and were too tired to come home. And I couldn't call because the house of the friend we ended up at doesn't have a phone. And I'm wearing these clothes because there was mud and grass stains all over mine, and they're still at the Byers with everyone else's. Sorry."

Max had worked very carefully to sound like a little kid that didn't witness her stepbrother almost beat up a boy she was starting to like, or actually beat unconscious a guy who was trying to protect The Party, or who she saw look scared out of his mind the entire drive home that afternoon. She didn't know why she cared about making sure her lies covered both Billy and herself like a protective, skin thin blanket, but she tried.

Billy probably figured out that Neil was going to get worse when she'd explained about wearing some boy's clothes he'd never met that was just a friend, face getting red, teeth grinding, and that look in his eyes that told both step-siblings what he thought about Max having "friends" that were all boys.

Honestly, she could tell he thought she was a slut at thirteen and didn't even try to hide his sneering contempt, even with Susan trying to believe her as she hid in the kitchen making them dinner _(like a fucking coward; no wonder Billy seemed to hate her)._

But he didn't hurt her then and he didn't even lay a hand on Billy _(she made sure to pay attention and tried not to leave Billy and Neil in the same room alone when she could help it)_ for weeks.

Until after the Snow Ball.  
  


Things that she didn't realize were dark and indecent became much clearer after she danced the night away with her friends, drinking horrible punch and watching Mike make a fool out of himself around El. The Ball had been better than she'd ever expected.  
  
Really, she should have known something was wrong when Billy had paused from biting his nails simply walking from his room to the kitchen, looking at her without shades of anger or bubbling hate.

He'd let her glare at him and wandered away back to his room, probably stayed there the whole time she was at the dance, keeping out of her business like she'd told him to weeks before and her staying out of his way despite her spine feeling like it was made of steel for the first time in years.

She'd walked though the door after waving at Steve driving off with the others, Lucas waving back at her like the big dork he was, and when she'd turned around, Neil had just been standing there, looking back out through the entry, door still open and cool breeze on her back.

"Where the fuck were you?"

"At the Snow Ball," she stated, the temptation to slow her speech like she was explaining herself to a child too strong as she shut the door and toed off her shoes, pretending that she had everything under control even as goosebumps raised her skin that had nothing to do with the chill from outside, "I told mom not to wait up since I didn't know when it would be over."

She hadn't expected his fist in her hair, yanking her around with his face barely an inch from her own. He smelled of cheap beer.  
  
  


She didn't remember much after that except him calling her a slut and waking up in Billy's room feeling like she got hit by a train. Billy himself had done the best he could with the medical kit she was aware he kept, but didn't realize why until he woke up from the floor at first light and sewed the cut hiding in her hairline.  
  
Max didn't hate him anymore.  
  
  
When she came back to herself, she prodded an egg, "Neil's an asshole. He doesn't need a reason."  
  
She liked that Billy snorted in agreement, accepting one pancake with whip cream and powdered sugar on top from Steve.  
  
Steve handed off three pancakes on her own plate to mirror her brother's and went to turn up the heat; she took the moment to squeeze Billy's hand under the table before scraping the whip from the top of her little golden clutch and adding it to Billy's small pile.  
  
There was no hiding after this. Billy accepted the gesture for what it was.   
  
They'd be alright.


End file.
